Aeneid Book 5, lines 680 - 699

Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet

by Virgil

After the passion and drama of the story of Dido in Book 4, Virgil releases the tension somewhat in Book 5, which is mainly take up with funeral games held for the anniversary of the death of Aeneas’s father, Anchises, a year before. Sea and foot races, a boxing match, an archery contest and cavalry manoeuvres are described in a style that fleshes out in further detail how ancient heroes were supposed to look and behave, and includes a good deal of humour. Then, towards the end of the book a number of developments move the plot decisively forward again. This extract describes the first, in which travel-worn Trojan women are deceived by Aeneas’s enemy, Juno, into an attempt to bring their wanderings to a premature end by burning the Trojan ships. In the aftermath, some will remain behind here in Sicily, in a newly-founded town. The youngest, toughest, bravest and most determined of the Trojans will continue the quest for Italy as a picked, battle-ready band.

See the blog post with an illustration from Claude Lorrain here.

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non idcirco flamma atque incendia viris
indomitas posuere; udo sub robore vivit
stuppa vomens tardum fumum, lentusque carinas
est vapor et toto descendit corpore pestis,
nec vires heroum infusaque flumina prosunt.
tum pius Aeneas umeris abscindere vestem
auxilioque vocare deos et tendere palmas:
‘Iuppiter omnipotens, si nondum exosus ad unum
Troianos, si quid pietas antiqua labores
respicit humanos, da flammam evadere classi
nunc, pater, et tenuis Teucrum res eripe leto.
vel tu, quod superest, infesto fulmine morti,
si mereor, demitte tuaque hic obrue dextra.’
vix haec ediderat cum effusis imbribus atra
tempestas sine more furit tonitruque tremescunt
ardua terrarum et campi; ruit aethere toto
turbidus imber aqua densisque nigerrimus Austris,
implenturque super puppes, semusta madescunt
robora, restinctus donec vapor omnis et omnes
quattuor amissis servatae a peste carinae.

Not for that did the fire and blaze reduce
their mighty strength; under the wet timber the tow
is alight, belching heavy smoke, the slow heat eats
the ships and the plague reaches down all their frame,
the heroes’ strength and the water they pour do no good.
Then loyal Aeneas tore the clothes from his shoulders,
called the gods to aid, stretched out his hands:
“Almighty Jove, if you do not yet despise the Trojans to the last
man, if ancient loyalty has some regard still for the labour
of men, now, Father, grant that the fleet escapes the fire
and snatch the slender fortunes of the Trojans from ruin.
Or, if I so deserve, bring what remains down to death with
your deadly bolt and crush it with your own right hand!”
Hardly had he spoken, when on the instant a black storm,
rages, spouting rain, steeps and fields shake with thunder;
over the whole sky the wild tempest rages in flood, black
with intense southerlies, and the vessels are filled
to overflowing, the half-burnt timber is waterlogged,
until all heat is quenched and all the ships, except four,
are saved from the scourge.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  2. In King Latinus’s hall
  3. The farmer’s starry calendar
  4. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  5. New allies for Aeneas
  6. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  7. Jupiter’s prophecy
  8. Cassandra is taken
  9. Dido’s story
  10. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  11. Aeneas and Dido meet
  12. Vulcan’s forge
  13. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  14. Aeneas’s oath
  15. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  16. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  17. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  18. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  19. The natural history of bees
  20. Dido’s release
  21. The death of Priam
  22. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  23. What is this wooden horse?
  24. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  25. Aeneas is wounded
  26. Into battle
  27. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  28. Storm at sea!
  29. Laocoon and the snakes
  30. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  31. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  32. The farmer’s happy lot
  33. Catastrophe for Rome?
  34. Love is the same for all
  35. Juno throws open the gates of war
  36. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  37. Juno’s anger
  38. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  39. Turnus at bay
  40. Rites for the allies’ dead
  41. The journey to Hades begins
  42. Sea-nymphs
  43. Juno is reconciled
  44. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  45. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  46. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  47. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  48. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  49. Turnus is lured away from battle
  50. Dido falls in love
  51. Mourning for Pallas
  52. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  53. The Syrian hostess
  54. Rumour
  55. The Trojans reach Carthage
  56. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  57. The Harpy’s prophecy
  58. Aristaeus’s bees
  59. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  60. The infant Camilla
  61. The death of Dido.
  62. The Aeneid begins
  63. Virgil begins the Georgics
  64. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  65. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  66. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  67. The death of Pallas
  68. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  69. King Mezentius meets his match
  70. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  71. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  72. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  73. Aeneas joins the fray
  74. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  75. The Trojan horse opens
  76. Signs of bad weather
  77. Turnus the wolf
  78. Charon, the ferryman
  79. The portals of sleep
  80. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  81. Aeneas arrives in Italy
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